When cat litter is "smart" enough to reflect pet health, consumers around the world are embracing the trend, helping Zaozhuang, a small city in east China's Shandong Province, become one of the world's largest silica gel cat litter production bases.
In the city with no traditional cat litter raw materials such as bentonite, around 200,000 tonnes of smart silica gel cat litter are produced every year and sold to more than 90 countries and regions.
Behind such a market success stands a remarkable case of transformation and innovation-led development, represented by local producer Sinchem Silica Gel Co., Ltd., which originally manufactured industrial materials such as desiccants.
Since a decade ago when orders were hard to obtain, the company turned eyes to pet economy where more and more cat owners across the globe frown at their increasingly long pet medical bills and need a cheaper and simpler way to monitor cat health.
After over one thousand times of testing, the company created a type of smart cat litter capable of color-changing when soaking up cat urine, which can tell the owner whether the pH level of the cat's urine is normal or not and help discover potential pet illness.
Featuring a non-clumping formula and a dry surface, the company's smart silica gel cat litter is durable for cat raisers who are sure to find that one bag of such bacteria-resistant cat litter with no dust release can be used for more than one month usually.
Unsurprising is its popularity in overseas markets. In the United States, every six of the 10 bags of high-end cat litter sold there are now made in Zaozhuang City. Despite being priced at nearly 30 U.S. dollars, a bag of such silica gel cat litter weighing about two kilos is a habitual cost-effective choice for U.S. cat raising families.
Exporting over 100 million U.S. dollars of silica gel cat litter to the world annually, the Zaozhuang-based company is presently delving into making cat litter even "smarter" by enabling related products with functions to identify hematuria, renal malfunction, etc.
(Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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